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What's On Your Hotel Keycard
Lam1969 writes "From Robert Mitchell's blog on Computerworld: '... Wallace, IT director at AAA Reading-Berks in Wyomissing, Penn. has been bringing a card reader with him on business trips to see what's on the magnetic strips of his hotel room access cards. To his dismay, a surprising number have contained his name and credit card information - and in unencrypted form.' " Update: 09/20 19:10 GMT by J : Snopes, as of two months ago, says this is false.
Now admittedly this country has gone to hell, but why in the world would you think a card reader would be illegal?
That is incredibly depressing.
For the government, and its media cronies to have you in the state of mind where you feel that you should not have access to something like a card reader is sad and pathetic.
Why would the Hotel need to put straight Credit Card information onto the card? This doesnt make any sense. Why wouldnt they just use some sort of key to tie your swipe card to your account on their system. This way if you DO lose your card and it isn't cancelled in time someone who decides to use it can only use it within the Hotel where it can then easily be tracked.
GL HF!
I know a lot of people (including myself, until now) simply assumed the card had some magick code on it that opened the door, and once they checked out, the code stopped working, so key cards got:
1) left in the room when you walked out. There's probably a box on the cleaning carts where they get chucked. Highly insecure.
2) left in the rental car or wherever. You're done with it and presumably it has no information relevant to you.
3) idly thrown away (probably the most secure, provided its a sufficiently yucky trash can)
4) Taped to office doors or cube walls to make a "gee, I travel a lot" mosaic.
The idea that they're somehow secure because they MIGHT get stored and reused seems laughable.